BUDDIST TEMPLE BLESINGS

Today we went to visit a Buddhist Temple. It was such peaceful place. We were offered to have our babies blessed by a Monk. Most of the families decided to have it done. As we walked into the temple we had to take off our shoes. Only one parent was aloud to enter with the baby. We knelt down in front of three Buddha's. The Monk proceeded with the ceremony. He sang and went on to bless our babies. He sprinkled water on the babies and the parent holding them. It was a real nice ceremony. I felt that we needed to do this for Emma before we left her country.

After we left the Temple we went on to the Jade store. I won't even go into what we(I) bought there. We got some really nice pieces of jewelry. After that we went to have lunch. From there we had to be back at the hotel by 3: 30 for the famous red couch photos. We got back from shopping and we had to get Emma in her traditional Chinese outfit. We headed down stairs to get the pictures taken. It went very well. We had 10 babies to take a picture of all at once. Can you imagine trying to get that many babies to pose all at once? Well, the babies did very well. We got to take a lot of pictures. They sat there for a good amount of time before anyone cried. Emma is the second one from the left in a maroon dress. She just sat there and wondered what was going on. She even sat there for a little bit after all the other babies were gone

After the photos we had some free time. A few of us choose to go on a dinner river cruise. It was a wonderful time. We ended up with only 4 families. All the tables were right next to the windows so that you had a wonderful view. I can't say that the food was anything great. It was just more Chinese food(I want Mexican and Italian)I didn't eat anything but two pieces of pound cake. It was a very warm night. We went to the upper deck and all around you were buildings lite up in the night sky. The breeze was so warm and humid. It felt very tropical. When the cruise ended we had to head back to the hotel. Emma was really tired and we had to get her to bed. The photos are kind of all over the palce. I can only post 5 at a time so there really is no sequence. ECG Girls, I had tp take a picture of Emma in her beautiful Chinese onsie that some of you made. I brought it to China just so I could do that. Thank you. One of the other pictures is from the pizza part that we had and some of the babies are sitting on the bed.